Pathway analysis functionality provided by the inventive system may determine a maximum number of simultaneous connections a Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) initiator may open to an end-device. This may promote an efficient usage of the SAS infrastructure by eliminating connection attempts that may fail due to the system configuration. Determining the maximum number of connections may include: examining a pathway from an initiator to an end-device. Examining the pathway may include examining a number of physical layers (PHYs) and the rates at which they may be connected to each device along a pathway including multiplexing.